Information

Access Key

Note:This is a student project from a course
affiliated with the Ethnography of the University
Initiative. EUI supports faculty development of courses in which students conduct
original research on their university, and encourages students to think about colleges
and universities in relation to their communities and within larger national and global
contexts.

Note:This is a student project from a course
affiliated with the Ethnography of the University
Initiative. EUI supports faculty development of courses in which students conduct
original research on their university, and encourages students to think about colleges
and universities in relation to their communities and within larger national and global
contexts.

East Asian Students at the IEI(Intensive English Institutue): Neoliberal

This project is about East Asian students from Korea, Japan, and
Taiwan studying at the Intensive English Institute of University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We conducted face-to-face individual
interviews with eight students and one interview with a former IEI
instructor. We asked how these students give meanings to their study
abroad experiences on this campus. Particularly we explore how
external "push factors" such as neoliberalism and globalization
affected the students' decision making to study abroad, and at the
same time how they negotiate on their own terms based on their
individual micro circumstances. Furthermore, we study the meanings
of multicultural or global experiences during their stay in the United
States as well as English learning. We found out that the students are
pushed to study English by prevailing forces such as neoliberalism, but
at the same time they are not just passive followers of external forces.
They give their own meanings to their English learning and
multicultural/global experiences on their own terms through subtle
contradiction, resistance, and negotiation. We also learned that the
institution itself is reshaping and customizing its curriculum in order to
satisfy the students' needs.

Issue Date:

2008

Series/Report:

Anth 499, East Asian Youth and Global Futures, Prof. Nancy Abelmann and Prof. Karen Kelsky: East Asian youth have experienced perhaps the world’s most compressed development as well as the world’s most aggressive globalization policies. This course examines how youth in East Asia (China/s, Japan, and the Koreas) are making their way in our globalizing world, focusing in particular on the transformations in work, education, recreation, gender, and sexuality brought about by neoliberal economic restructuring in the region. Topics studied include the insecure job market for young people, consumerism, globalized pop culture phenomena such as Pokemon, the Korean wave, and Internet gaming, emergent LGBT communities, etc. Students are encouraged to focus their research projects on aspects of the U. of I. student life that reflect the experiences of East Asian youth in a global market. The U of I offers a fascinating window on East Asian youth because of the many college (and pre-college) students who make their way here – as well as the movement of “Amercian” youth to East Asia. Through participation in the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI), students will conduct local field research that reveals the global processes at issue. The course syllabus is available at: www.eui.uiuc.edu/docs/syllabi/ANTH499S08.doc